In the manufacture of printed circuit boards that include large discrete components such as capacitors, it is desirable to mount such components in a way that consumes as little circuit board area as possible. For example, the U.S. Pat. No. 6,163,460 to Baur et al. shows several different arrangements for supporting a leaded capacitor off the surface of a circuit board and electrically coupling the capacitor to the circuit board with mounting shanks that press into plated through-holes formed in the circuit board. Moving such components off the surface of the circuit board frees-up circuit board surface area for accommodating smaller leaded and surface-mount devices. However, it is essential for durability that the off-board components be adequately supported to withstand vibration and other fatigue-related phenomena.
The increasing usage of lead-free soldering processes has caused an additional problem with capacitors and other temperature-sensitive components due to the higher melting temperature of most lead-free solders. Accordingly, there is a need to isolate such temperature-sensitive components during the soldering process.